Microsoft has announced today that on April 8th, you will be forced to upgrade your WLM client and begin using Skype. While not a major surprise as Microsoft has already indicated that the company will be closing down Windows Live messenger, it’s now clear that there is now a final deadline for starting the massive transition.

Skype states on their blog that the upgrade will begin on April 8th with English users and will conclude on the 30th with Brazilian Portuguese.

Here is how it will play out; as of April 8th, you will no longer be able to sign into your Windows Live Messenger account and if you wish to continue chatting with your friends, you will be forced to use the Skype client.

This is a massive transition for Microsoft as it looks to position Skype as its premier messaging service. While you can already migrate your account to Skype, the process is not perfect. When moving over from WLM to Skype, if you have the same contacts on both platforms, you will likely see duplicate accounts on your Skype client. In addition, if you receive spam from a WLM account while using Skype, you can’t block that user from messaging you.

Microsoft has a long way to go to clean up the transition process but it does work, albeit there are a few hiccups in the road. If you haven’t already made the move to Skype from WLM, it’s likely best to make the upgrade sooner, rather than later, as we can imagine on April 8th, there will be quite a few users who will be upset when they find out they can’t login to their account.